


The dead should stay dead

by therune



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-16
Updated: 2012-04-16
Packaged: 2017-11-03 19:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therune/pseuds/therune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James rises from the grave. Everyone wishes he would have stayed there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The dead should stay dead

The day the Trickster came back from the dead was supposed to be a happy one.  
He had been too clever for his own good, mischievous and full of energy, but he had always been a true friend when you needed him. He was brave, courageous and once you became his friend, you stayed his friend for life time.

The world became a darker place when he was murdered, but no one suspected it would get worse when he came back.

The world had barely recovered from their last crisis and a zombie apocalypse when the next tragedy began.  
For such a dramatic event you´d expect thunder and lightning, a storm, pouring rain, grey sky and all stars hidden behind thick clouds, but it was actually a pleasant if slightly chilly night.

Avernus was silent as ever; peaceful, undistrurbed and the final resting place for fallen Rogues. A place of memory and respect.

After the Blackest Night they all needed time to think and a place to remember their fallen friends as they ought to be remembered. They did everything they could to push the images of them zombiefied and trying to kill them from their minds. They knew that their hearts hadn´t been in it.

It was in a sick way good to see them - Lisa, Digger, Roscoe, Sam and Roy. They hadn´t quite figured out just how the hell Sam could rise as a zombie when he had been murdered in another time and wasn´t even buried here, but they figured that life (or death) just worked that way. United in death, at last.

The graves were still and silent, exactly the way they were supposed to be.  
Time for grief and mending broken hearts. Only that fate had other plans.

One fallen Rogue had not risen from his grave. One had stayed in the afterlife. And now, after the Blackest Night, he had awoken. James Jesse gasped and was suddenly alive and whole again. He wasn´t in the desert where he died anymore, but he lay on green grass and saw an odd, yet familiar sky.  
"Avernus," he whispered. "I´m back."

It didn´t take long for the Rogues to find him. They were shocked, amazed and bewildered.  
"James, what are you --how?" they said, their mind not quite grasping what had happened.  
"I just had a resurrection and I´m greeted by stuttering morons - great." There was a harshness in his voice that hadn´t been there before.  
Len didn´t say it, but his thoughts were visible on his face. Why you and not Lisa?  
Why the obnoxious, loud prankster and not his beloved sister?  
Jealousy and grief were thick in the air like a scent that was suffocating them.

"You´re wondering why I´m alive? Why me and not the others? I can see it in your eyes."  
His gaze was deep, he drilled into them and revealed their thoughts. It was as if he invaded their minds, grabbed it and left a nauseating feeling behind.

Wrong

"That´s not what-"  
"Of course it is! I can see it!" he replied in a singy-songy voice that was downright creepy instead of cheery, "my sister´s dead. Boo-hoo! I´m an emotionally stunted kid that grew up in an abusive household, has an unhealthy ice cream fetish and misses his mommy. I burned down my house with my family in it. I murdered the only person who ever cared about me out of petty jealousy. I shot my own parents and have now joined the grief-club after murdering the family of one member here. Cry me a river!"

They were hurt. And when Rogues get hurt, they fight back. Weapons were aimed at James.  
"What the fuck was that?" Mick demanded to know.  
James chuckled. "It´s the truth. I can see it now. I can see it all!"  
His voice alternated between cheery and a deep, menacing tone. Laughter bubbled up inside him and broke out, but he stopped himself when it became hysterical and began to tear at his mouth.  
"Don´t you see it boys? I can see so much now, so much truth, so many secrets - all those pesky, little secrets that you hide deep within your hearts. I see them. I reveal them. And it´s fun!"  
He laughed but without emotion, desperation in his voice.  
A ifre burned in his eyes, consuming the heart of the James Jesse he had once been.  
"Why don´t we have a little chat? I can tell you stories from the fun time I had and you can listen and don´t interrupt me! Wouldn´t that be fun? Yes, yes it would."  
They were petrified, unable to move. Something was paralyzing them, creeping deeper and deeper int their bodies, making resistance impossible.That couldn´t be James´doing....could it?

"Come on," James said, "we are all damaged goods. Everyone of us has family issues, one worst than the next. My mother left me after my birth, my dad raised me....half-assed, as he did everything else. There always was this one barrier between us, I could never reach him. Maria, the fortuneteller at our circus told me that I reminded him too much of my mother who had run away with another man and that he hadn´t forgiven her. That made sense, so I didn´t pry anymore. The older I got, the more he turned his back on me. He spent a long time ogling the girls and not enough time making sure I wasn´t plummeting to the ground. I was so scared of falling. There as always this voice that kinda urged me on to falling, that made me think I would fall down no matter what I did, but there was also the fear, the fear of falling, so I did everything I could to stay in the air and never fall again. My favorite books used to be about Jesse James, Robin Hood, but now I educated myself, read books about physics, engineering, mechanics until I built myself flying shoes. Not jet boost propulsion, shoes that liberated my from earth´s gravity field. Shoes that made it impossible to fall...shoes that took me above the world and its rules!

Crime, all the things that were forbidden had a fascination to me I could never explain. When it was wrong in the point of view of the world, I wanted to do it. I wanted to have fun, I didn´t care about the consequences. The crisis came and went, killing friend and foe alike, and then I was tired of this game. It wasn´t fun anymore, it was serious and deadly. It had become dangerous. Then I got myself the green candle - I felt the urge again, to lit it, to have fun, to fall....  
I ended up in Hell, and was greeted by Neron himself. Did I ever tell you that my candle never actually was my candle? I stole it from Roy, and then Neron revealed to me that he had been counting on me stealing the candle all along, his little extra challenge for me. Well, we all knew how well that worked out. I saved the world, no one noticed, the world was back to normal and I was afraid of falling like I was never before.  
Before that incident, I thought I knew what awaited me if I fell - injuries, pain and death. But...I knew better. Injuries, pain and death were only the beginning - Hell was next and I was so afraid, I didn´t want to go there!  
I had seen Hell...I had made enemies there, the greatest enemy one can ever have, and I was scared. I reformed, no more crimes, no more stealing, no more fun. It was game over for me.

But it wasn´t enough, it was never enough. I had to do good, to atone for my sins. I switched sides, worked for the government, worked against criminals, against my friends, all to not end up in hell.  
Then I got the chance to do something big, something good - saving the Flash, my old enemy..new enemy? Anyway, I went undercover, I made you trust me, I was a Rogue again. Those days were the most fun I had had in years, but I couldn´t enjoy it, it coudn´t last, I had a job to do.  
Only, I failed."  
He was serious for one brief moment, until mania crept back into his eyes.

"I failed to save the Flash, I failed to capture the bad guys, I failed to save my friends, so I ran. Piper ran away with me, but he shouldn´t have done that. I´m bad news, I attract bad things. I tried to push him away as far as I could until we got chained together. And then I pushed even harder. The urge to fall was back, so strong, more powerful than ever. I would have dragged him down with me....so he needed to leave.  
Things didn´t go as planned and... I died. At least I saved him.

And then I fell.  
I fell for so long, so horribly long... and I ended up in the one place I had never wanted to. I was greeted by fangs, green eyes and a voice as sweet as honey and as deadly as a blade.  
Doomed forever.

Only...it wasn´t the end of my journey.  
Neron told me something.  
And suddenly....everything made sense.  
My poppa pushing me away because I reminded him of my mother... that was only a part of the truth. He grew to hate her, for running away, for leaving him with a child....as child that was not his own. I do look a bit like my mother, but I resemble my father in some ways. We love to laugh, cause mischief, we want to have fun.....we are smart. Too smart. There is no way a simple carny kid with his head in the clouds and the most intellectual activity reading robber stories could have invented shoes that defied the laws of physics. Then the shoes....they liberated me from earth itself. Mortal rules do not apply to me, for I am so much more. Can you see it? Do you know who I am?

I am Neron´s son!"

He giggled and it hurt them like knifes.  
What the hell....

"It´s true! He seduced my mother and she abandoned me after my birth because she couldn´t stand looking at me, seeing my father in my eyes. The guy she ran away with was Death - she took her own life, unable to bear with the truth.  
My poppa didn´t care in the end if I would fall - he would have been rid of me, my mother and the stranger who had taken her.  
My supreme intelligence - courtesy of my dad, my real dad. Too clever for my own good.  
That´s why the special challenges, those were tests!

Then, the urge to fall....it was the urge to come home! It´s been that all along, only I confused my life and my home, and never realized what that feeling truly was. That was why I had always been so cocky and confident when facing Neron: I felt a familiar presence, I felt home! Not many men can say that they stood up to the devil, tricked him twice and walked away. He told me that he wasn´t mad at me, he was made at me leaving, at me not realizing who I truly was.

The crime, the mischief, the game - it´s what we do, only he operates on a larger scale.  
Also, our sense of loyalty.... we are loyal, bound to our word...but only to our exact word. We love loopholes.  
And we use them.

He told me so much, he taught me so much. He understands me.  
There was a revolution, down in hell and he died----supposedly. But, they never knew that he lives in me. The devil´s blood courses through my veins!  
That is what kept me from the Blackest Night - death has to yield before the devil. You can´t kill a demon, some part of it always remains.  
I remained.

And I am here to take my rightful place, on my father´s throne.

Now, get out of my way.  
Or you will suffer."

The Rogues could only stare as their former friend transformed in front of their eyes. His shape remained the same, his looks remained but he changed. His eyes glowed with an unearthly green and then he had no iris, no pupil and his gaze tore into them. Was it an illusion or did his teeth turn into fangs? Was it an illusion or did he become pale? Was it an illusion or did his ears get pointy? He was truly frightening. He seemed to grow, but didn´t gain an inch. He carried himself differently, upright as if he was the king of the world. For one second, his shadow showed horns, spikes and wings, but only for a second and then it only showed JJ.

"Daddy will be so proud of me," he said in a childlike voice that made them almost lose their mind.

They were indeed all damaged goods.  
And James was the most damaged of them all.


End file.
